On Christmas Day after dodging the answers about when she was going to settle down and start a family, Holly made a vow to herself that she would at least be engaged by this time next year. It was so embarrassing to be 30 years old and still single, especially when you’re younger sisters have boyfriends and one of them has a child. Of course, the first thing that she did when she returned home on Christmas was to go online and post her profile on a matchmaking site. It seemed that all of her friends were married now too. Holly was tired of being the only single woman in her group, which only made her more determined to find a husband in the next year. As soon as she got home she made up a game plan on different ways to find a husband, since she had vowed to herself that this would be the last year that she would be alone on Christmas. As soon as she went into her condo, she immediately felt alone and went online to research different online matchmaking services. She immediately registered for one that sounded like it was designed for people who were looking for a serious commitment, like marriage. Right after she posted her profile on the site she immediately went to bed, hoping that she would have a few responses to her ad in the morning. When she got up the next morning, she was excited that she had quite a few responses in her inbox. She quickly went through them and contacted the guys that interested her the most, of course she was keeping an open mind the only thing that she required of them is that they share her faith and her moral standards. She wasn’t going to be as picky about a man’s occupation or education level that she had been in years past. She wondered if she could of missed out on meeting a wonderful man, because her standards were higher in the past. She put those thoughts behind her as she worked on the task that she had set before her. Then she made a list of the different ways to meet a good Christian man at her age. The first thing that she did was to look on the internet for churches that had a singles group, unlike the church that she currently attended that had mostly young families in it. She made a list and decided to visit them on Sundays, to look at the male/female ratio. At the first church she went to, she found out that most of the singles class was made up of mostly females. She decided that would be the last time that she would attend that church, since chances were very slim that she would find a potential husband there. Later on that Sunday, she went online and she soon discovered that someone had posted on a discussion board on different churches in the area, the best churches for men and women to find each other. Holly made a note of the churches that according to them had the most number of eligible men, so that she could start visiting those churches instead of wasting her time on churches that didn’t seem to have very many eligible men. She had received quite a few emails from men who were interested in meeting her from the dating site that she had posted to. She replied to the ones that seemed to be serious about marriage, according to the profiles that she had read and even set up a coffee date for the next day after work. The next day she met Rob for coffee at a local Starbucks, where they had a getting to know you session. When she saw Rob, she was surprised to see a nearly balding man in his late thirties sitting there, but she swore to herself that she wasn’t going to be as picky about the men that she dated as she had in the past. When she went over to the room to greet him she started the conversation by asking him a few questions about himself.

“So what do you do for a living?” she asked him curious to see what he did.

“Well, I’m a financial planner with my own firm right here in town. You may want to check it out sometime,” Rob answered her question sounding proud of himself and his company. Holly looked at him and was wondering if he was really interested in a date or just drumming up business for his company.

“That sounds interesting, but do you have any other interests outside of work?” Holly asked him hoping to get him to talk about something else other than work.

“I do enjoy reading financial books and playing video games. I just got a new Xbox 360 that I can play the latest games on,” Rob replied sounding excited when he started to talk about his favorite pasttime.

Holly tried to look interested as he started to talk about the games that he played on his Xbox. After about fifteen minutes of talking about himself, he finally got around to asking about Holly’s work and hobbies. When Holly got home that night, she decided to make a date with the next man who was interested in her profile.

Meanwhile, in the condo next to Holly’s, Mark was pleased with himself for getting through the holidays again without his wife. His wife, Lisa had been dead for two years now and he had no interest whatsoever in marrying again. He was even tired of going to church and the eligible young women try to interest him in remarriage, but he was put off by their determination to find a husband and have kids. He couldn’t believe why most of the women in the church were eager to start a family anyway, of course he couldn’t talk since he had married Lisa right out of college. Of course when he heard what some of the women talking about the reasons that they were looking for marriage, it seemed like they just wanted a guarantee that they wouldn’t be alone for the rest of their lives. He wanted to warn them that there were no guarantees in life look at him thirty and alone even though he did marry right out of college and his wife was killed in an auto accident two years after they were married. They had no children, though his wife was two months pregnant at the time of her accident. After Lisa’s death he had thrown himself into his work as a young lawyer in a prestigious law firm, of course he didn’t care about the money he used his work to get away from the memories of Lisa and the life that they could have had together. Of course his neighbor Holly, waved to him each morning and she was cute but not drop dead gorgeous. He was surprised one Sunday morning when she happened to visit his church that morning, even though he shouldn’t have been too surprised since the church had an active singles program. He only hoped that she wasn’t one of those females who went to a particular church in order to find a husband; she seemed to be too nice for that. Besides the point of going to church was to worship God, not to be used as a Christian singles club, pity though there were some women who used church to try and find a potential Christian husband Mark thought to himself. He got up and greeted her when he saw her walk into his Sunday School class.

“Hi there I’m Mark and I’m glad that you could come to Covenant Church this morning,” he told her sounding pleased that Holly was visiting with them this morning.

He then introduced her to the other members of the class both male and female. He noticed that she looked at the females as if she was sizing up the competition and talked to the males as if she were interested in what they were saying. He was disappointed that she seemed to have an ulterior motive for attending his church.